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A method of converting Z-number to classical

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Article in Journal of Information and Computational Science March 2012

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Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709
Available at http://www.joics.com

A Method of Converting Z-number to

Classical Fuzzy Number

Bingyi Kang a , Daijun Wei a , Ya Li a , Yong Deng a,b,

a College of Computer and Information Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
b School of Electronics and Information Technology, Shanghai Jiaotong University
Shanghai 200240, China

Abstract

The notion Z-number introduced by Zadeh in 2011 has more capability to describe the uncertain
information. Now that the theories about Z-number is not mature, how to convert Z-number to classical
fuzzy number is rather significant for application. In this paper, a method of transforming Z-number to
classical fuzzy number is proposed according to the Fuzzy Expectation of fuzzy set. At last, a simple
example is used to illustrated the procedure of the proposed approach.

Keywords: Z-number; Fuzzy Expectation; Fuzzy Set; Decision-making

1 Introduction
In the real world, uncertainty is a pervasive phenomenon. Much of the information on which
decision are based is uncertain. Humans have a remarkable capability to make rational decisions
based on information which is uncertain, imprecise and/or incomplete. Formalization of this
capability, at least to some degree, is a challenge that is hard to meet. Zadeh proposed a notion,
namely Z-number, which is an order pair of fuzzy numbers (A, B). The first component, A, plays
the role of a fuzzy restriction. And the second component B is a reliability of the first component
[1].
It is new concept which has more power to describe the knowledge of human being and will
be widely used in the uncertain information process. But it is so new that some theories have
not been figured out. And the classical fuzzy set theory is relative mature and has played much
important role in the field like decision making, fuzzy control etc. [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]. Under
this situation, how to transform Z-number to a classical fuzzy number is a rather significant issue.
In this paper, a method of converting Z-numbers to classical fuzzy numbers is proposed according
to the Fuzzy Expectation. And many applications can be done under the description method
with Z-number directly.

Corresponding author.
Email address: ydeng@swu.edu.cn (Yong Deng).

15487741 / Copyright 2012 Binary Information Press

March 2012
704 B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 discuses some definitions and
concepts. In Section 3 the proposed method of converting Z-number to classical fuzzy number is
discussed. Section 4 contains a simple example to illustrate the proposed approach. At last, a
conclusion is made in the Section 5.

2 Basic Concepts and Definitions

Definition 1 A fuzzy set A is defined on a universe X may be given as:

A = {x, A (x) |x X } (1)

where A : X [0, 1] is the membership function A. The membership value A (x) describes the
degree of belongingness of x X in A.

In real application, the domain experts may give their opinions by fuzzy numbers. For example,
in a new product price estimation, one expert may give his opinion as: the lowest price is 2 dollars,
the most possibility price of the product may be 3 dollars, the highest price of this product will
not be in excess of 4 dollars. Hence, we can use a triangular fuzzy number (2, 3, 4) to represent
the experts opinion. The triangular fuzzy numbers can be defined as follows.

Definition 2 A triangular fuzzy number A can be defined by a triplet (a1 , a2 , a3 ), where the
membership can be determined as follows

A triangular fuzzy number A = (a1 , a2 , a3 ) can be shown in Fig. 1.

0, x (, a1 )


xa1 , x [a , a ]
a2 a1 1 2
A (x) = (2)

a3 a2 , x [a2 , a3 ]
cx



0, x (a3 , +)

A(x)

0 a1 a2 a3 x

Fig. 1: A triangular fuzzy number

Similarly, the trapezoid fuzzy number can be defined as follows:

Definition 3 A trapezoid fuzzy number A can be defined by a triplet (a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 ), where the
membership can be determined as follows
B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709 705

A trapezoid fuzzy number A = (a1 , a2 , a3 , a4 ) can be shown in Fig. 2.

0, x (, a1 )




(a2 a1 ) x a2 a1 , x [a1 , a2 ]
1 a
1

A (x) = 1, x [a2 , a3 ] (3)

1 a4
x [a3 , a4 ]

(a4 a3 )
x+ a4 a3
,

0, x (a4 , +)

A(x)

0 a1 a2 a3 a4 x

Fig. 2: A trapezoid fuzzy number

( )
Definition 4 A Z-number is an ordered pair of fuzzy numbers denoted as Z = e e
A, R . The
e a restriction on the values, is a real-valued uncertain variable X. The second
first component A,
component R e is a measure of reliability for the first component, which can be described as Fig. 3.

A(x) R(x)
Z=(A, R)
1 1

A R

0 x 0 x
a1 a2 a3 a4 b1 b2 b3

Fig. 3: A simple Z-number

Definition 5 Let a fuzzy set A be defined on a universe X may be given as:A = {x, A (x) |x X }
where A : X [0, 1] is the membership function A. The membership value A (x) describes the
degree of belongingness of x X in A. The Fuzzy Expectation of a fuzzy set is denoted as:

EA (x) = xA (x)dx (4)
X

which is not the same as the meaning of the Expectation of Probability Space. It can be considered
as the Information Strength supporting the fuzzy set A.
706 B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709

In the following section, we will introduce the proposed approach according to the same Ex-
pectation of Fuzzy Number.

3 The Proposed Method of Converting Z-number to Reg-

ular Fuzzy Number
Assume a Z-number Z = (A, R), which is described by Fig. 3. The left is the part of re-
striction, and the right is the part of reliability. Let A = {x, uA (x)| x [0, 1]} and R =
{ x, uR (x)| x [0, 1]}, uA (x) is a trapezoid membership function, uR (x) is a triangular mem-
bership function.

(1) Convert the second part (reliability) into a crisp number.

x (x)dx
= R (5)
R (x)dx

where denotes an algebraic integration.

(2) Add the weight of the second part (reliability) to the first part(restriction). The weighted
Z-number can be denoted as Z = {x, A (x) |A (x) = A (x) , x [0, 1]}

Theorem 1
EA (x) = EA (x) , xX (6)
s.t. A (x) = A (x) , xX (7)

PROOF.

EA (x) = xA (x) dx = xA (x) dx = xA (x) dx = EA (x)
X X X

which can be denoted by the Fig. 4

(x)

A
1

0
a1 a2 a3 a4 x

Fig. 4: Z-number after multiplying the reliability

B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709 707

(3) Convert the irregular fuzzy number (weighted

{ restriction)
 to regular
( ) fuzzy number.
} The regu-

lar fuzzy set can be denoted as Z = x, Z (x) Z (x) = A , x [0, 1] , According
x

to Theorem 3, the conclusion can be made that Z has the same Fuzzy Expectation with Z ,
and they are equal with respect to Fuzzy Expectation.

Theorem 2

EZ (x) = EA (x) , x X (8)
( )
x
s.t. Z (x) = A , x X (9)

PROOF.
( )
x ( ) ( )
EZ (x) =
xZ (x) dx =
xA dxx = t t A (t) d t

X X X

= tA (t) dt = EA (x)
X

which can be denoted by the Fig. 5

(x)
Z'
1

0
a1 a2 a3 a4 x

Fig. 5: The regular fuzzy number transformed from Z-number

Theorem 3
EZ (x) = EA (x) (10)

PROOF. From Eq. (6) and Eq. (8)

EA (x) = EA (x)
EZ (x) = EA (x)
EZ (x) = EA (x)
708 B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709

4 A Numerical Example
In this section, a numerical example is used to illustrate the procedure of our approach. Assume
an expert gives his opinion as follows:
A = (0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1; 1)
and his reliability is
R = (0.8, 0.9, 1; 1)
The Experts knowledge can be expressed to Z-number as
( )
Z = A, R = [(0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1; 1) , (0.8, 0.9, 1; 1)]

At first, we should to convert experts reliability into crisp number according Eq. (5)

x (x)dx
= R = 0.9
R (x)dx
Second, Add the weight of reliability to the constraint.
Z = (0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1; 0.9)
Third, Convert the weighted Z-number to regular fuzzy number according to the proposed ap-
proach.
( )
Z = 0.9 0.7, 0.9 0.8, 0.9 0.9, 0.9 1; 1
= (0.9487 0.7, 0.9487 0.8, 0.9487 0.9, 0.9487 1; 1)
= (0.6641, 0.7589, 0.8538, 0.9487; 1)

5 Conclusion
The notion Z-number introduced by Zadeh in 2011 has more capability to describe the uncertain
information. Now that the theories about Z-number is not mature, how to convert Z-number to
classical fuzzy number is rather significant for application. In this paper, a method of transforming
Z-number to classical fuzzy number is proposed according to the Fuzzy Expectation of fuzzy
number. And a simple example is used to illustrated the procedure of the proposed approach.

Acknowledgement
The work is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, Grant
(No. 60874105, 61174022), Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University, Grant
(No. NCET-08-0345), Shanghai Rising-Star Program Grant (No. 09QA1402900), Chongqing Nat-
ural Science Foundation, Grant (No. CSCT, 2010BA2003), Aviation Science Foundation, Grant
(No. 20090557004), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities Grant
(No. XDJK2010C030, XDJK2011D002), National Defence Sciences Funding of Shanghai Jiao
Tong University Grant (No. 11GFF-17), Doctor Funding of Southwest University Grant
(No. SWU110021), Leading Academic Discipline Project of Shanghai Municipal Education Com-
mission Grant (No. J50704).
 B. Kang et al. / Journal of Information & Computational Science 9: 3 (2012) 703709 709

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